As I said I own Maschine as well and really like it but I think that its biggest weakness is actually its sequencer which not nearly as easy to use that Live's.

lol No, that's called your opinion, which is fine. Anyway, I disagree completely. I find it to be the opposite, really. In my opinion, you won't find a sequencer as elegant, easy and intuitive as Maschine precisely because it's all hands-on and so efficient and can feel like you're not using a computer.

lionelrc wrote:

If you prefer Maschine sequancer to Ableton's then you shouldn't need Ableton at all so there's no issue.

Yeah, you may not need Ableton at all but so what? They're different enough and they both have their uses. And many use both together. It doesn't always have to be one over the other.

lionelrc wrote:

But if you use Maschine as a plugin within live maybe it's because Live as a daw is still your first choice.

No, that doesn't mean Live would be your first choice DAW. You assume a lot. For example, Live is definitely not my first choice DAW, yet I do run Maschine as a plugin within Live when performing live.

lionelrc wrote:

If you prefer Maschine sequencer then stay with Maschine and forget about Live alltogether.

Again, this is your opinion and makes absolutely no sense to make blanket statements like that as if it was some sort of objective truth. The reality is that many different people use Maschine and Live in different ways for different purposes. So no, just because one prefers the Maschine sequencer doesn't mean they should "forget about Live altogther".

If I were to use Maschine standalone or plugin does the workflow differ at all for getting the tracks into Live? One thing I'm worried about is that Maschine software isn't as elastic as Live, meaning, ability to push the sounds around with the warping engine.

Is it a case of recording each Maschine track in real-time to audio tracks or is there a freeze track ability?

I really wish I could just borrow a Maschine for a weekend and get all these workflow questions out of the way.I was in my local music shop today and tried out Maschine with it's Software and it seemed very intuitive but at the same time very 'locked to the grid'

The more I think about these two controllers and what I want from them the more I lean towards Push. The potential I see from it is what is swaying me and it seems much more performance based. Good move on Ableton's part for choosing 64 smaller pads to play on, no more stretching while performing more complex rhythms.

I can't wait to see what Stray does once he gets his hands on it. Anyway I'm still not going to jump the gun and will wait for another couple of weekends

If I were to use Maschine standalone or plugin does the workflow differ at all for getting the tracks into Live?

For both standalone use and as a plugin, you can always drag and drop audio or midi directly from Maschine into Live. In standalone mode, you can also choose Audio Export (which gives you options for exporting the entire arrangment or just a loop range of each group by separating by individual sounds, individual groups, or as a stereo master) which puts those files into your Maschine export folder which are then ready to be dragged and dropped into a DAW at once. When used as a plugin, you also have the option to route the Maschine tracks into Live and record in realtime.

panten wrote:

One thing I'm worried about is that Maschine software isn't as elastic as Live, meaning, ability to push the sounds around with the warping engine.

Maschine has offline timestretch which works very fast and feels immediate in use. Realtime timestretch is also coming to Maschine but in the meantime, you can use any plugin that does realtime timestretch in Maschine.

panten wrote:

Is it a case of recording each Maschine track in real-time to audio tracks or is there a freeze track ability?

Yes, you can record each Maschine track in realtime to audio tracks. You can freeze tracks in Maschine by turning off plugins/modules (which removes it from the CPU cycle) and bouncing internally to another pad either by drag and dropping or resampling using sync mode (lets you set predetermined length of bars and Maschine will record a clean loop to exactly that many bars, in sync with the tempo).

panten wrote:

I was in my local music shop today and tried out Maschine with it's Software and it seemed very intuitive but at the same time very 'locked to the grid'

Not sure what you mean but you can turn off the grid in Maschine's sequencer.

panten wrote:

The more I think about these two controllers and what I want from them the more I lean towards Push. The potential I see from it is what is swaying me and it seems much more performance based.

Not sure about that. According to Ableton:

Jesse wrote:

Quote:

I would like to know if Push creators see it as a performance tool too.

Sure, Push has obvious uses onstage, but we focus on the creation workflow first.

panten wrote:

Good move on Ableton's part for choosing 64 smaller pads to play on, no more stretching while performing more complex rhythms.

Keep in mind that with the way Ableton designed Push, you're still limited to 16 pads (4x4) at once for Drum Racks.

Hope that helps. Sounds like you'd benefit from checking out the latest manual for Maschine. Good luck.

What I meant by performance based is that you will have more octaves to play on and thus a more immediate surface to glide around on. I always felt somewhat restricted by 16 pads & stepping around octaves for more melodic work.

delicioso wrote:

Not sure what you mean but you can turn off the grid in Maschine's sequencer.

I've always had a problem ever since going computer based for music (starting on Cubase). Getting stuck in loops only and never breaking out of that box. It seems to me that Maschine standalone is very much Scene based. I get that they are just a container for whatever you want to do but I can see myself never breaking away from it. It's hard enough with clips in Live.I understand that you can bounce tracks 'relatively' quickly to Live and compose there but sometimes even the most simple barrier can be enough of a hurdle..

I've downloaded the Maschine mkII manual and will have a good dig through it but I know it'll be a bit abstracted to me as I'm more hands on.

Your answers are definitely food for thought when it comes time to decide so cheers again, it's much appreciated.

*edit*

Quote:

Sure, Push has obvious uses onstage, but we focus on the creation workflow first.

One of the questions I have about Push is, will there be firmware upgrades in future, and features added as time goes on?

I'd be amazed if there wasn't. Push is being, well, pushed on to Live owners as the main tool for Ableton. In many ways it seems very much a direct take on Maschine (though with several huge differences as described in this thread). With that in mind, Ableton will frankly have to keep adding new features as in its 1.0 form, Push doesn't deliver anywhere near its potential for me.

Native Instruments with Maschine are a great example of how to progress a device. Sure they have taken or did take forever in delivering certain additions to the device and software but v1.0 vs v1.8 is a huge leap. With similar development then I could see Push being insane in 3 or 4 years time. Its that potential that I can't shake myself free of and always has me thinking about a Push purchase. But, for now, Maschine, x-station and Nocturn have me pretty well covered.

Damnit, my local music shop just hiked the price up. I thought £399 was too good to be true

J0n35y wrote:

With similar development then I could see Push being insane in 3 or 4 years time. Its that potential that I can't shake myself free of and always has me thinking about a Push purchase.

This is exactly my mindset. I am aware that I could be setting myself up for a disappointment if Ableton drop support. I reckon some kind of reassurance from them would actually boost sales of the hardware significantly. Will we get the things described in this thread (and others) to bring it up to the same level of functionality as Maschine's mouse free workflow?

One of the questions I have about Push is, will there be firmware upgrades in future, and features added as time goes on?

With that in mind, Ableton will frankly have to keep adding new features as in its 1.0 form, Push doesn't deliver anywhere near its potential for me.

I've been having similar thoughts, although, reading through the 9 manual, it looks like it does cover everything pretty well. The whole not being able to step sequence with a synth thing, I found to be a bit of a surprise. That would be ace. But like others have said I'd assume a lot of cool stuff will come as either M4L devices, or firmware upgrades down the line.

My only worry is if a Push 2 comes out, catering for some of the things missing now in hardware form only. But, I guess that's inevitable.

As it stands now I'm on the fence as to whether to pre-order, or to wait out and try one in a store, read a few reviews. What if it sucks?

[art] I would advise against jumping the gun. You just have to ask yourself what is the advantage in pre-ordering?

I have to see something in the flesh before I make a purchase. What if the non-Pad buttons are cheap hard plastic? I asked the question on the beta forum and didn't get a response so I'm just going to wait and feel them for myself.A company can tell you how amazingly well built their hardware is until they're blue in the face, but that may fly in the face of what you 'actually' get your hands on. As is the case with the Surface RT which is NOT as well crafted as they heralded.

Damnit, my local music shop just hiked the price up. I thought £399 was too good to be true

J0n35y wrote:

With similar development then I could see Push being insane in 3 or 4 years time. Its that potential that I can't shake myself free of and always has me thinking about a Push purchase.

This is exactly my mindset. I am aware that I could be setting myself up for a disappointment if Ableton drop support. I reckon some kind of reassurance from them would actually boost sales of the hardware significantly. Will we get the things described in this thread (and others) to bring it up to the same level of functionality as Maschine's mouse free workflow?

Yeah had spotted the price hikes kicking in pretty much as soon as 9 was officially given a release date. My local (the excellent Red Dog Music) is up at £429 unfortunately. Happy enough to wait and see how it is and Im certain they'll have one to play with in the store anyway.

I don't think Ableton could drop support any time soon. Live 9, to me, is largely about Push plus a few additional nice features (automation, audio-to-midi being the big two for me). A huge chunk of development time and money seems to have been pumped into Push for them to just drop support or ignore feature requests. Maschine can and will do much of what Push is capable of (for example) and continues to improve. I think its a fair prediction that NI will deliver something major for Maschine 2.0 and Ableton will have to respond themselves.

Anyway, that's all sepculation but from what I've read the Ableton guys seem keen to show they are listening to folk and looking to improve in future upgrades.

I've been having similar thoughts, although, reading through the 9 manual, it looks like it does cover everything pretty well. The whole not being able to step sequence with a synth thing, I found to be a bit of a surprise. That would be ace. But like others have said I'd assume a lot of cool stuff will come as either M4L devices, or firmware upgrades down the line.

My only worry is if a Push 2 comes out, catering for some of the things missing now in hardware form only. But, I guess that's inevitable.

As it stands now I'm on the fence as to whether to pre-order, or to wait out and try one in a store, read a few reviews. What if it sucks?

Like Panten, I'd say don't jump ship just now if you are uncertain. What's the rush at the end of the day? Release day isnt going to go down like some Nintendo release where if you miss out on day one you might have to wait 6 months! I say wait and try it out. It looks like the sort of thing that will quickly turn into an immediate purchase within minutes of trying it out but has it got staying power in the studio? Only time and others experiences with it will tell. My birthday is September, I think Im going to hold off for the 6 months until then before making a decision. PLenty of time to see how much Push will benefit me or not.

I dont doubt that there will be some sort of Push 2 one day but that's life. Wont happen for a good couple of years. I walked into Maschine MkI during the sale pretty confident that a MkII was just around the corner (which it was) but it didn't bother me. My concern would be that Ableton may ditch Push 1 entirely rather than adopt NI's approach of supporting two controllers (albeit that may be temporary until 2.0 appears). Getting ahead of ourselves though! And again, that's just the way tech rolls.